Sometimes a photograph can sit quietly in our homes, displayed day after day, without us noticing all of its details. This morning, as I was preparing to write my third blog for Little Sparrows of Hope, I shifted a picture of my daughter Rebecca — one that usually rests beside my bed. As I moved it, I suddenly remembered where it was taken: in Lytham when visiting a relative in the Feb 2000 - Rebecca died 9th May.

That memory had slipped from my mind, maybe prompted by yesterday, when I visited Lytham for the VJ celebrations. It brought with it another reminder — a head scarf I wore when making paella, on my 60th birthday in Barcelona with family and guests of my yoga retreat who had become friends. This was a trip Tom had wanted so very much to do with me (he died in the Sept and this was Nov*). Looking at those moments now, I see both the joy and the ache: the scarf, the celebrations, and the people who were with me then but are no longer in my life. Some people come into your life for a reason, a season ......

Grief has a way of bringing these threads together unexpectedly. A photo frame adjusted, a walk in a familiar place, an item of clothing remembered — all can carry us back in time, sometimes painfully, sometimes tenderly.

What I take from this is that memory isn’t fixed. Details can fade, resurface, or surprise us. And when they do, they remind us that even in absence, love continues to weave its way through the smallest of things.Sometimes a photograph can sit quietly in our homes, displayed day after day, without us noticing all of its details.

With warmth,
Joanne

PS Taking a photo of that photo, I realise the silver frame has the date : 9th May 2003. It was a wedding gift, we married on the 3rd anniversary of Rebecca's passing. It also see that it needs cleaning!

* I have a court case in Turkey regarding ownership of a yoga retreat - Spectrum Turkey - that my husband and I had built and ran together. In the legal documents the Turkish Troll who now runs it, said I didn't care that my husband had died because I went on holiday soon after he died!

That trip to Barcelona wasn’t about “not caring.” It was about survival, courage, and finding a way to keep breathing after my world fell apart - Tom encouraged me to go! Grief doesn’t follow anyone else’s timetable. And if anyone still doesn’t understand? Well, as Lily Allen so perfectly put it… “F** You.”